The presser the Maryland Lottery held this morning seemed like a total sham, even if in the name of goodwill. After all the shenanigans from last week, that appeared to be a convenient story to wrap things in a nice bow. Congrats to the winners.

Metro Center Station during the early morning rush. (Melina Mara)

The long wait to open the doors of Howard Theatre ended yesterday. City officials stood together cheesing during the ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by hundreds in the afternoon, and after night fell and the curtain went up, area natives Tabi Bonney and Wale rocked the stage. Even Duke Ellington's children took part in the festivities, which included the official unveiling of his statue. The Post's DeNeen L. Brown looks back on the historic day in Shaw.

Some people just love to tempt fate. Instead of learning the lessons from one of the most horrific sinkings in world history, some people are trying to re-create it. The Titanic Memorial Cruise is an actual thing, down to the period costumes that passengers wore for the journey. Then the trip was delayed due to high winds. Um, yikes. More generally, Ross A. Klein writes for Foreign Policy that the global cruise industry is an unmitigated disaster all around.

It seems that the only crimes that get racial designation involve blacks. Rarely do we hear about “white-on-white” or, say, “asian-on-asian” crimes in the headlines. Every time a black person is killed, various pundits like to throw around stats about how blacks are so much more likely to lose their life at the hands of a person of their own race. One problem is that the same pretty much goes for whites, but that's rarely discussed. The Root's Edward Wyckoff Williams breaks down the false media narrative.

The Nats literally threw a game away last night. Let's just say the effects of not having Drew Storen in the bullpen showed up immediately at Citi Field. To be fair, Henry Rodriguez faced the music like a champ after his ninth-inning meltdown that allowed the Mets to stay undefeated on the season. He'd never given an interview to a group in English, but he did last night. And remember what I said about Ian Desmond? Yeah, again, he's the fulcrum of the team. And Monday wasn't a good day.

Extra Bites

• Since Facebook is taking over Instagram and we're all going to need a way to fight back, so we can then update our statuses about it, here's a little something called Instaport that allows you to download all your photos without FB interference.

• Silent films are apparently in, so what could possibly be better than Star Wars in that format? Um, nothing? Yeah, that's exactly what I thought.

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